reality

This post could be subtitled: “Or, why the left — Democrats and so-called liberals and progressives — enjoy a rhetorical advantage over libertarians and fiscal conservatives.” (Other kinds of “conservatives” — those who are simply in a war with the left over the spoils of political rapaciousness — are on their own.)

Leftists are kind, caring, and generous — because they say they are. Conservatives and libertarians are none of those things — because the possession of such traits is a question of behavior, not rhetoric.

Leftists dismiss human imperfection, while finding perfection in their vision of the world as they want it to be. Conservatives and libertarians understand human imperfection and offer only a vision of betterment through striving.

The rhetoric of leftism — when it is not downright hateful toward non-leftists — has wide appeal because to adopt it for one’s own and to echo it is to make oneself feel kind, caring, generous — and powerful — at a stroke. It matters not whether the policies that flow from leftist rhetoric actually make others better off. The important things, to a leftist, are how he feels about himself and how others perceive him.

It is easy for a leftist to seem kinder, more caring, and more generous than his conservative and libertarian brethren because a leftist focuses on intentions rather than consequences. No matter that the consequences of leftist dogma could match their stated intentions only if Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy ruled the world.

In the leftist’s imagination, of course, government is Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. Government, despite the fact that it consists of venal and fallible humans, somehow (in the leftist’s imagination) wields powers that enable it to make “good” things happen with the stroke of a pen and at no cost.

Or if there is a cost, it is to be borne by those despised “rich,” who dare to acquire more than their “fair share” of income and wealth. Leftists seem know who is “too rich” and what is a “fair share” by mysterious intuitions that are inaccessible to mere mortals. Leftists seem to have acquired a fine knowledge of what others deserve to earn, though that knowledge seems not to have kept many a leftist from scrambling up the ladder of material prosperity. It’s all right to be “rich” if you proclaim your heart to be in the right place.

By the same token, it is all right to dictate the terms and conditions of human striving– what is made, how it is made, whether it is made, how much of it is made, how much of it may be consumed, etc. — as long as one’s heart is in the right place. The leftist, you see, is compelled to protect mere mortals (the unwashed masses) from themselves. That is because the leftist cannot grasp the the concepts of personal responsibility and betterment through (sometimes) bitter experience.

Such realities have no meaning for the leftist. For him, human progress is attained by the magical powers of government, which can raise up the impoverished, cure the stricken, and banish strife from the land. It is up to government to do such things because, in the view of a leftist, nothing that happens to anyone (or to anyone who is on the left’s list of favored groups) is his fault — it is the fault of “society” or the uncaring, unkind, ungenerous exploiters who (in the left’s imagination) control society. (The ultimate irony is that the uncaring, unkind, and ungenerous exploiters are the leftists who, when not held in check, write the rules by which we mortals live.)

In sum, the true nature of leftism is a blend of Utopianism and power-lust. Thus, in the left’s view of things, human wants can be met, but only without mussing the face of the Earth; people can live and work wherever they choose, as long as it is in compact cities in which government owns the only means of transportation; people can say what they want and associate with whom they please, as long as they say nothing to offend certain kinds of persons and are forced to associate with them, like it or not. (The list goes on, but that is more than enough to make my point.)

The idea of allowing individuals to make their own way (and sometimes to fail in the process of trying), to become sick and die because of the “lifestyles” they prefer, and to avoid one another (usually for very good reasons) is beyond the ken of the leftist. Imperfection — in the mind of a leftist — is impermissible. Individuals must not be allowed to fail, to become ill, or to harbor ill feelings (except toward the enemies of leftism). The antidote to failure is to arrange our lives and business affairs as the leftist would like to see them arranged. All in the name of kindness, compassion, and generosity, of course.

The ideal person — to a leftist — is not a human being but a cog in the left’s design for the world.

Objectivism takes as its metaphysical foundation the existence of reality that is unchanged by anything that an observer might think about it—”A is A,” as Aristotle put it, and as Rand often repeated in her own work. Objectivism’s epistemology is based on the capacity of the human mind to perceive reality through reason, and the adamant assertion that reason is the only way to perceive reality.

Objectivism is just a refined form of bunkum, which can be shown by examining its four Randian tenets (in italics, followed by my commentary):

It is true, and tautologous, to say that reality exists; that is, the real has “verifiable existence.” But there are many conceptions of reality, some of them based on identical observations of the physical world. (Read about physical cosmology and quantum mechanics, for example.) There may be an objective reality, but it is trivial to say so. The reality that we perceive depends on (a) the limitations of our perception (e.g., the degree to which telescopes have been improved), and (b) the prejudices that we bring to what we are able to perceive. (Yes, everyone has prejudices.) And it always will be thus, no matter how many facts we are able to ascertain; the universe is a bottomless mystery.

In my experience, Objectivists flaunt their dedication to reality in order to assert their prejudices as if they were facts. One of those prejudices is that “natural rights” exist independently of human thought or action. But the concept of “natural rights” is an abstraction, not a concrete, verifiable reality. Abstractions are “real” only in a world of Platonic ideals. And, then, they are “real” only to those who posit them. Objectivism is therefore akin to Platonism (Platonic mysticism), in which ideas exist independently of matter; that is, they simply “are.”

It would be fair to say that Objectivism is a kind of unreality.

2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.

Reason operates on perceptions and prejudices. To the extent that there are “real” facts, we filter and interpret them according to our prejudices. When it comes to that, Objectivists are no less prejudiced than anyone else (see above).

Reason is an admirable and useful thing, but it does not ensure valid “knowledge,” right action, or survival. Some non-cognitive precepts — such as the “Golden Rule,” “praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,” and “talk softly but carry a big stick” — are indispensable guides to action which help to ensure the collective (joint) survival of those who observe them. Survival, in the real world (as opposed to the ideal world of Objectivism) depends very much on prejudice (see Theodore Dalrymple’s In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas).

3. Man — every man — is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.

This dictum is an attack on the straw-man concept of altruism, which has no basis in reality, as I explain here and here. All of us are individualists, at bottom, in that we seek our own happiness. It just happens that some of us correlate our happiness with the happiness of (selected) others. Rand’s third tenet is both a tautology and a (lame) justification for behavior that violates social norms. Objectivists (likeanarcho-capitalists) seem unable to understand that the liberty which enables them to spout their nonsense is owed, in great measure, to the existence of social norms, and that those norms arise (in large part) from observance of the “Golden Rule.”

4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.

Here, Rand shifts gears from preaching the bed-rock prejudices and tautologies of Objectivism (tenets 1, 2, and 3) to the “ought” of Objectivism. It is hard to distinguish Rand’s fourth tenet from the tenets of libertarianism, which makes me wonder why some Objectivists scorn libertarianism (e.g., go here and scroll down). It is not as if Objectivism is reality-based, as opposed to libertarianism. In fact, consequentialist libertarianism (anathema to anarchists and Objectivists, alike) has the advantage when it comes to defending laissez-faire capitalism. The facts of history and economics are on the side of laissez-faire capitalism because it yields better results than statism (see this and this, for example).

I will not bother, here, to dismantle the jejune rejection of preemptive self-defense: the so-called non-aggression principle, which I have addressed in this post (and in several of the links therein). Nor is the notion of complete separation of state and church worth more than a link this post (and the links therein) and this one.

In sum, Objectivism reminds me very much of a late-night, dorm-room bull session: equal parts of inconsequential posturing and uninformed “philosophizing.” Sophomoric, in a word.

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The Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia

On this blog, as in most places where it appears, the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia -- Lee's Army -- stands for deliverance from an oppressive national government and resistance to political correctness, not racism. (Click on the image and scroll to the last entry in my moral profile.)

On Liberty

What is liberty? It is peaceful, willing coexistence and its concomitant: beneficially cooperative behavior.

John Stuart Mill opined that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." But who determines whether an act is harmful or harmless? Acts deemed harmless by an individual are not harmless if they subvert the societal bonds of trust and self-restraint upon which liberty itself depends.

Which is not to say that all social regimes are regimes of liberty. Liberty requires voice -- the freedom to dissent -- and exit -- the freedom to choose one's neighbors and associates. Voice and exit depend, in turn, on the rule of law under a minimal state.

Liberty, because it is a social phenomenon and not an innate condition of humanity, must be won and preserved by an unflinching defense of a polity that fosters liberty through its norms, and the swift and certain administration of justice within that polity.

The governments of the United States and most States have long since ceased to foster liberty, but Americans are hostage in their own land and have no choice but to strive for the restoration of liberty, or something closer to it.

Notes about Usage

"State" (with a capital "S") refers to one of the United States, and "States" refers to two or more of them. "State" and "States," thus used, are proper nouns because they refer to a unique entity or entities: one or more of the United States, the union of which, under the terms and conditions stated in the Constitution, is the raison d’être for the nation. I reserve the uncapitalized word "state" for a government, or hierarchy of them, which exerts a monopoly of force within its boundaries.

The words "liberal," "progressive," and their variants are in quotation marks because they refer to persons and movements whose statist policies are, in fact, destructive of liberty and progress.

Marriage, in the Western tradition, predates the state and legitimates the union of one man and one woman. As such, it is an institution that is vital to civil society and therefore to the enjoyment of liberty. The recognition of a more-or-less permanent homosexual pairing as a kind of marriage is both ill-advised and illegitimate. Such an arrangement is therefore a "marriage" (in quotation marks) or, more accurately, a homosexual cohabitation contract (HCC).

Comments & Correspondence

I have enabled comments on posts dated May 1, 2014, and later. Comments close five days after the publication of a post. If a post is no longer open for comment, or if you prefer to communicate privately, you may e-mail me at the Germanic nickname for Friedrich followed by the last name of the great Austrian economist and Nobel laureate whose first name is Friedrich followed by the 3rd and 4th digits of his birth year followed by the usual typographic symbol followed by the domain and extension for Google's e-mail service -- all run together.

If you submit a comment or suggestion by e-mail, I may acknowledge it or use it on this blog. But I may paraphrase what you say or edit it for the sake of concision, clarity, coherence, or brevity. I will not use your name unless you specifically authorize me to do so. Even then, I will put quotation marks around your name unless I am certain of your identity.